1. Description of the Related Art
The present invention relates to a recording medium, such as an optical disk, a recorder used for recording data on the recording medium, and a player for playing back the data.
2. Background
Information of interest, such as audio information, is recorded on a compact disk (CD), serving as an optical disk, in the form of CD-format data (hereinafter referred to as “CD data”). Specifically, information is sampled at a cycle of 44.1 kHz, and each of the thus-sampled values is quantized into 16-bit words. The thus-quantized words are recorded after having been subjected to predetermined processing, such as eight-to-fourteen MODULATOR (EMF). More specifically, after having been quantized into 20-bit or 24-bit words, a sample is again quantized into 16-bit words in accordance with a predetermined scheme. Resolution used for quantizing a sample is higher than that used for quantizing the sample into CD data.
Demand exists for recording audio information, whose sound quality is higher than that of a conventional CD, on an optical disk and playing back the audio information with higher sound quality than that achieved by the conventional CD. Demand also exists for playing back the optical disk with the same sound quality as that achieved by the conventional CD, through use of a conventional CD player. In other words, there exists demand for an optical disk which is compatible with a conventional CD player and records music information of higher sound quality, as well as demand for a player capable of playing back the optical disk with higher sound quality. Such demands for higher sound quality and compatibility are not confined to CDs but exist for other types of known recording media as well. Further, such demand is not limited to the field of audio but also applies to the field of video.
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to respond to these demands.